The agency has also recently faced accusations that it carried out large-scale cyber attacks including a foiled attempt to hack into the computer system of the global chemicals watchdog.

“The president will call in at the Theatre of the Russian Army (in Moscow), where he will speak at a gala event to mark the centenary of the GRU,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.

The two men suspected by Britain of poisoning ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the English city of Salisbury in March have both been identified by an investigative website and other media as GRU agents.

The Kremlin denies any involvement in the poisoning.

In September, the men gave an interview to a Kremlin-controlled television channel, saying they were in Salisbury as tourists.

Separately, the US Justice Department last month indicted seven GRU agents over a series of major hacking plots attributed to Moscow.

The agency changed its name to the Main Directorate (GU) as a result of a reform in 2010, but is still commonly known as the GRU.

It is one of Moscow’s three spy agencies along with the FSB security service and the SVR foreign intelligence agency.

Putin is a former head of the FSB, the main successor to the Soviet Union’s notorious KGB.

The GRU military intelligence has an extensive spy network abroad and its highly-trained “spetsnaz” special forces have fought in various conflicts, including in Afghanistan and Chechnya.